Post by patricimo54 on Nov 22, 2009 22:53:39 GMT -5
Just as burning wood, deer hunting, and trapping are common activities in fall all over North America, here in the south there is another activity that alot of us southern folk look forward to, gathering and putting up pecans, or "puttin up cons" as the older country folks say.
As far back as my memory will take me I was climbing trees and shaking branches in order to have these majestic old trees give up their harvest. I did this as a kid with my dad for snack food and pecan pies for the holidays. As a teenager "cons" help put gas in the tank and beers in the belly. I know people that had family members work as professional threshers. Now a days they have equipment that shakes the tree to release the nuts, but up until the 70's or maybe even the 80's( I am not certain when the wide spread use of mechanical shakers were utilized) threshers armed only with a Calcutta cane pole and agile cat like balancing skills would bring 100's of pounds of nuts to the ground daily.
Back in the day, it was a common practice for people to harvest "on the halves" The thresher would get half the nuts that hit the ground for their labor. When I was a kid in the 60's native hard shell would bring $.50 a pound. Forty years later natives bring $.50 a pound. I haven't had a chance to actually pick up nuts this season thus far, I have hopes of gleaning a few during the two weeks I am taking to trap after Thanksgiving.
What I have done is support a older fellow that has just come off layoff and back to the plant who has a small grove of pecan trees that he normally uses his profits to pay his property taxes. He sold me 10 pounds @ $2.00 a pound. Once he realized that his crop had a worm problem he gave me an additional 4 pounds to make up for losses. I took the nuts to a local produce stand to have them mechanically cracked at $.35 a pound. I now have $24.90 invested into these nuts. Through the course of two weeks watching TV I have shelled and bagged a net weight of 5# in snack bags that equal about 1.25 cups nuts per bag at about 1/4# each. I put these in gallon freezer bags to assure long storage life. That makes the clean nut meat costing me $4.98 a pound. About 1/2 the price of fresh cleaned nut meat at retail. I can shave $2.00 a pound of that once I can harvest my own.
Machine with piston type action cracks 1 nut at a time
Hopefully you can see how well the machine cracks the shell.
Clean nut meat is packaged in snack size bags at 1.25 cups per bag.
Then into gallon size freezer bags for long term storage in the freezer. I have eaten 2 year old plus nuts stored this way that still had great flavor.
As far back as my memory will take me I was climbing trees and shaking branches in order to have these majestic old trees give up their harvest. I did this as a kid with my dad for snack food and pecan pies for the holidays. As a teenager "cons" help put gas in the tank and beers in the belly. I know people that had family members work as professional threshers. Now a days they have equipment that shakes the tree to release the nuts, but up until the 70's or maybe even the 80's( I am not certain when the wide spread use of mechanical shakers were utilized) threshers armed only with a Calcutta cane pole and agile cat like balancing skills would bring 100's of pounds of nuts to the ground daily.
Back in the day, it was a common practice for people to harvest "on the halves" The thresher would get half the nuts that hit the ground for their labor. When I was a kid in the 60's native hard shell would bring $.50 a pound. Forty years later natives bring $.50 a pound. I haven't had a chance to actually pick up nuts this season thus far, I have hopes of gleaning a few during the two weeks I am taking to trap after Thanksgiving.
What I have done is support a older fellow that has just come off layoff and back to the plant who has a small grove of pecan trees that he normally uses his profits to pay his property taxes. He sold me 10 pounds @ $2.00 a pound. Once he realized that his crop had a worm problem he gave me an additional 4 pounds to make up for losses. I took the nuts to a local produce stand to have them mechanically cracked at $.35 a pound. I now have $24.90 invested into these nuts. Through the course of two weeks watching TV I have shelled and bagged a net weight of 5# in snack bags that equal about 1.25 cups nuts per bag at about 1/4# each. I put these in gallon freezer bags to assure long storage life. That makes the clean nut meat costing me $4.98 a pound. About 1/2 the price of fresh cleaned nut meat at retail. I can shave $2.00 a pound of that once I can harvest my own.
Machine with piston type action cracks 1 nut at a time
Hopefully you can see how well the machine cracks the shell.
Clean nut meat is packaged in snack size bags at 1.25 cups per bag.
Then into gallon size freezer bags for long term storage in the freezer. I have eaten 2 year old plus nuts stored this way that still had great flavor.
